Trivia log of working class citizen

Malaysia Palm OIl. A single crop with many priceless contributions.

To the enviroment, To health, To livelihood, And the economy.

Its trees give us oxygenand fight against global warming.
Its fruit gives us vitamins and energy, Malaysia Palm oil also provides liveslihood to millions around the globe,
making large economic contributions o Malaysia and the world

It's more than just oil. it's a gift from nature. A fruit for life.




One unique thing about oil Palm is It produces two type of oils from the same tree , Palm Oil(palmatic oil) from the flesh or mesocarp and palm kernel oil
(Lauric Oil) from the seed or kernel inside the hard cell mesocarp.

My brothers & I brought a new car for mum,you can check out Photo section for more pictures.
this is a Malaysia version of Toyota Passo, you can check out the promotional video at You Tube,
a 7 minutes of Marketing material.

There are tons of Books out there for self-improvement,increase you productivity,You hardly have time to digest them,Like me have a couples of books lying in the bookshell,during this hliday break I stumple upon 2 places to visit for movtivation, I'd like to share with you or you can add yours to share.

a) Want to hack your life? Check out LifeHacker I like their motto " Don't Live to Geek, Geek to Live"

b) Entrepreneur Dave Cheong's Blog - Dave Cheong's Blog
Check out :10R to apply if you want to succeed,
13 problem sloving nuggets every one should know

Palm oil information update at PalmOil.com

MPOB Material

here's 1 of them by Dr Chan Kook Weng, QUOTE"

Unfair Lobby Against Palm Oil and its Nutritional Benefits
There are two statements of truths as the Malaysian palm oil industry journeys into the beginning of the 21st Century. The first is that 'success has its problems' and the second is that the industry to ward off these problems has 'to look to the future in truth'.

On the first truth, Malaysia as a developing nation has been working hard to build up its agriculture with palm oil leading in its export to over 150 countries. Such a global brand for a Malaysian product is achieved through hard work and collaboration between public and private sectors, research and good government support and policies. The Malaysian palm oil industry has become the world foremost supplier in the oils and fats market. As the oil palm growers continue to demonstrate its sustainability, there are the growers of the other competing vegetable oilseed crops that inherently do not give as much oil yield per ha having to resort to distort facts and joining a pool of palm oil critics who are competitors of palm oil with their unfair lobby. Hence the first truth that 'success has its problems' is borne out by such unfair lobby .
On the second truth, the Malaysian palm oil industry for over a quarter of a century since the 1980s has been facing a series of major attacks yet it chose to remain calm by not resorting to counter campaigns but rather to continue to tell the world about the goodness of palm oil. This has led the Malaysian palm oil industry into subscribing to second statement 'to look to the future in truth'.

The overall maxim of 'No legacy is so rich as honesty' written by William Shakespeare in "Alls Well That Ends Well" will be the industry's clarion call. This editorial forms the first of a three-part series to put the records straight. We will begin firstly, to tell the truth about the nutritional benefit of palm oil that is sustainably produced. Over the next two editorials, we tell the truth that Malaysia supports biodiversity conservation and is not destroying orangutan and its habitat; and thirdly, Malaysia practises sustainable forest management and is not sacrificing its pristine forests for producing palm oil for biofuel. Through out these three editorials there will be presentations of facts and figures for our readers to judge for themselves about the unfair lobby by the competitors. Undoubtedly honesty, more than any thing else, when use in highlighting the facts, undertaking research, developing and marketing products, and in disseminating information on palm oil is the way forward for the industry to journey into the future.

Foremost in agriculture perhaps is how to deal with the most outstanding issue of sustainability. As a start, palm oil has been produced in Malaysia for the past 100-150 years and this is already a demonstration of sustainability. In attaining sustainable development, the challenge is to tackle simultaneously all three fronts of the ecological, the economic and the social viewpoints. Each is equally important and must be treated holistically without neglecting any. The three-pronged issue calls for:

Firstly, to address the ecological viewpoint, the Malaysian palm oil industry has to push its modern and advanced large-scale technologies of oil palm plantations as the leading model for developing future agriculture in the global scene. The use of chemicals in a.i. per ha is already very low in the palm oil industry and despite this, the industry has been complemented by the wider use of integrated pest management (IPM) to further reduce use of pesticides, together with the recycling of co-products like empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) back to the fields to reduce chemical fertilizers, zero burning to reduce emissions and planting of leguminous ground covers to reduce the use of fossil fuel derived nitrogenous fertilizers. The overall goal is to demonstrate that both productivity and growers' income through ecological farming will be backed up with data and facts from now onwards.

As the Malaysian palm oil industry occupied 4 million ha at the end of 2005 the area is well within the six million ha out of the 33 million ha in the country allocated to agriculture. Malaysia will continue to enjoy 64% of its land area under forests and as recorded by FAO and if we include the perennial plantations tree crops the areas covered by greens will be bigger than 84%. Such a forest cover is likely to have higher level of biodiversity with greater numbers of fauna and flora over countries that are having less than say 20% forest cover left.

Secondly, to address the economic viewpoint, the Malaysian palm oil industry has represented a form of modern agriculture that is well run by professional planters. It has to shoulder the heavy taxes and at the same time, not given any subsidy yet it is highly sustainable. On top of all these, the industry has endured problems of unfair lobby for its competitors because Malaysian palm oil is lumped with Indonesian palm oil for criticism. As seen from the ENGOs like the Friends of the Earth (FoE) and American Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) criticisms through their documents that the oil palm plantation causes allegedly wanton destruction of forests and annihilation of orangutans' habitats.

The WTO is trying but not seen to be doing enough to ask the rich countries to reduce their subsidies. The latest round of WTO talks in Geneva had failed. On the contrary, these developed countries have set up high tariffs thereby punishing the commodity producers from the developing countries with Malaysia included. Such a protectionist position of these developed countries only favors restriction of freer trade propagated behind a cloak of some environmental or health issues. What the Malaysian palm oil industry is asking is for a level playing field and Agencies such as the WTO are not known for speedy, decisive action on this. In fact the longer the deliberations take the greater likelihood for complex unsatisfactory resolutions to arise.

Despite this, Malaysia, being blessed with the gift of palm oil to the world, is outdoing the competitors by achieving annual yield production per ha at five times more than rapeseed and 10 times more than soya bean. All these go to show that these oilseeds, without their countries' subsidy, will be unsustainable in face of intensive competition from palm oil. Yet palm oil production with its supremacy over the vegetable oilseeds, has not followed the path taken by these competitors such as rapeseed where, for example, has most of its oil being used as a major source of biodiesel capable of supplying about 84% of Europe's needs. Malaysian palm oil has a social responsibility to supply oil firstly as food to the highly populated major customers of China, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh before serving EU and USA. Malaysia and Indonesia have recently jointly decided to use up to 40% of their palm oil for the biofuel despite the fact that the premium and profit margins for the food sector is better at the moment.

Palm oil, even when all of it is used in the biodiesel production, represents a meager 13% share of the world total 570 million gallons of the world's raw resource for biodiesel. And this is equivalent to 5% of the world petroleum consumption. Since the total oil palm area cannot meet even 5% of the world energy needs, there is no fear as envisaged by the environmental NGOs (ENGOs) posing the ethical question of how much of our palm oil will be utilized for fuel over that of food. Perhaps the same question should first be posed to the other vegetable oilseed producers, especially the rapeseed but it is not done. Instead, the likely negative campaigns from palm oil competitors and market detractors have begun and greater intensity can be expected. This aspect of accusing palm oil for fuel by ENGOs will be dealt with in greater detail in the third section of a three-part editorial.

Thirdly, to address the social viewpoint, the composition of the Malaysian palm oil industry being made up of 60% private investors, 30% as organized small holders and 10% as independent smallholders has the responsibility to look after 1.5 million people employed indirectly or about 0.5 million people directly over the value supply chain. Already the Malaysian palm oil industry has embarked on a programme to change the mindset by building a new paradigm with policies of demonstrating sustainable development that the industry has been practising all this while. Only thing is that these will have to be communicated properly and widely where most of the publications are to be simplified non technically to be understood by the end users or they must reach the end users in the locations where the information needs to reach. This positive approach has started in consultation with the science-based ENGOs and other stakeholders during the current meetings of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Certainly in the detailed discussions of the principles and criteria there is an opportune platform when engaging with the NGOs and other stakeholders that the initiative does not undermine the future development of oil palm plantations or palm oil production. Notwithstanding the good intention of the RSPO and that the current RSPO Principles, Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production (P&C) are undergoing a two-year trial period the support for this has been increasing even before their full implementation and opening the P&C for certification and enforcement may be considered in the near future. By participating in the test, valuable feedback will be forth coming or protest of any criteria that are not practicable can be provided as important lessons.

It is likely that the plantations will qualify as sustainable because many of these sustainable practices have been incorporated into the draft Malaysian Standards of oil palm good agricultural practices (MS OPGAP) where most of them have already been implemented for many years. This standard, upon publication in August 2006 is expected to have a wider chance of adoption since the small holders' involvement was there right from beginning of the consultation process and that RSPO allows for national interpretation of the criteria and indicators. When MS OPGAP is implemented over the whole industry, it is likely that Malaysian palm oil industry is ready to consider for certification by the relevant Malaysian authorities for sustainable palm oil. Hence socio-economically, providing employment, feeding the poor, preventing human disease and improving the living standards of the small holders and indigenous populace, particularly those of the rural areas, are honest and attainable socio-economic goals of the Malaysian palm oil industry. Much excitement and many challenges lie ahead of us but these must best be met with truthfulness in our endeavor.

These three fronts, continuously evaluated and resolved in an integrated manner are likely to demonstrate the sustainabilty of palm oil with valuable backup data. All indications point to the fact that Malaysian palm oil production is sustainable. Since Malaysian palm oil is likely to be proven to come from sustainable sources in the new future, there is yet the resurfacing of unfair lobby on its nutritional benefits. It is an old story emanating from the earlier days of soya bean Anti-Palm Oil Lobby.

Lately, much concern has been expressed regarding the safety of the presence of trans fatty acids in food products due to the hydrogenation of the soyabean oil. After many years of study, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its first final ruling on July 11, 2003 with the enactment on 1st January 2006. This has allowed the food industry in USA to adjust to the new food requirement. Against this requirement many food manufacturers are currently seeking alternatives to the trans fat and natural semi-solid fats like the palm oil would be a good choice but this is not to be so.

Instead food scientists have been coerced to shun natural fats like palm oil as ingredients and turn to unnatural highly processed fats that already carried health concern. The ENGOs like FoE and CSPI in their documents "The oil for Ape Scandal" launched in Britain by FoE and "Dying for a Cookie" in US by CSPI respectively have both been found not factual. This aspect will be dealt in greater details with the second section of a three-part editorial.

There is an axiom in business that "the customer is always right" And if your products is good why do you need to put down your competitors. Sooner or later the public will come to know the truth that palm oil is always better. Thanks to the rapid transmission of all types of information buyers and customers are well informed to nullify the unfair lobby. So let the buyers be beware that "Knowledge is power" by Francis Bacon in "Meditationes sacrae" (1597).

Dr Chan Kook Weng, FISP , UNQOUTE

Dear Santa, I has been a good man for the past eleven months, can I have these for Christmas :


i) Sony Bravia 46" LCD TV


















ii) Sony PlayStation 3






















iii) Sony Ericssion W950
















iv) Apple iMac


















v) Toyota Wish